A group of international researchers just made a breakthrough in understanding what drives skin cancer growth, as well as how tumors are able to evade our immune system’s defenses.
Analyzing the tumors of more than 200 melanoma patients in the U.S., the team from New York, Mexico and Brazil found that a molecule that helps regulate gene activity – a key protein known as “HOXD13” – is crucial to the blood vessel growth that fuels melanoma tumor cells, pumping them with oxygen and nutrients.
And, they discovered that levels of cancer-killing white blood cells known as cytotoxic “T cells” in the bloodstream are lower in melanoma patients with high activity of the HOXD13 protein — and that the T cells those patients have are less able to enter those tumors.
But by suppressing the activity of the HOXD13 protein, the researchers saw tumors shrink.
That’s good news for more than one million Americans living with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
There are expected to be more than 8,500 deaths tied to melanoma in the U.S. this year as well as 112,000 new cases, according to the American Cancer Society.
“Our study provides new evidence that transcription factor HOXD13 is a potent driver of melanoma growth and that it suppresses the T cell activity needed to fight the disease,” Dr. Pietro Berico, a postdoctoral research fellow at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Perlmutter Cancer Center, said in a statement.
The protein also changed the area around tumors to make it hostile to the immune system’s cancer-fighting instincts, boosting levels of the protein CD73 that increase levels of the chemical adenosine.
Adenosine serves as a shield for tumors, stopping T cells from passing through.
When the researchers turned off HOXD13, there was an increase in the T cells entering the tumors.
The findings open up new avenues of treatment for melanoma driven by HOXD13, according to Dr. Eva Hernando-Monge, a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
Separate clinical trials are being conducted to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of medications that target these processes.
If the experiments prove successful, the researchers say there are plans to use the drugs to treat melanoma in people with elevated levels of HOXD13.
Current melanoma treatments depend on a patient’s diagnosis, but include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and cancer drugs that find and destroy cells, also known as immunotherapy.
Drugs are often the first line of treatment and can shrink tumors for long periods of time, according to the society.
Melanoma makes up just one percent of all skin cancer cases, but causes a large majority of the United States’ yearly deaths from skin cancer.
